What is this? This is rate of moving the chains, which is my primary statistic for handicapping games. It holds the assumption that the goal of any team on any given 1st and 10 (or 1st and goal) is to move the chains (or score). In order to figure out how often teams meet that goal, I take first downs plus touchdowns and divide it by first downs plus touchdowns plus failures to move the chains (successes divided by attempts). Failures to move the chains include punts, turnovers, failed 4th downs, and field goal attempts (being forced to kick a field goal is a failure).

I have this sorted by percent for (to evaluate offenses), percent against (to evaluate defenses), and differentials (to evaluate teams). Below that, I use this to calculate spreads for this week’s games (by taking the differences between the differentials of the two teams and adding 3 points either way for homefield). It’s not a perfect formula, but it does a good job of lessening the value of inconsistent things like turnovers and return touchdowns. These are the remaining playoff teams and how they stack up.

Offense

	Team	First downs	Touchdowns	Punts	Turnovers	Failed 4th downs	Field goal attempts
1	Denver	461	74	65	28	1	28	81.43%
2	New England	401	50	83	20	9	41	74.67%
3	Seattle	320	43	80	19	5	38	71.88%
4	San Francisco	329	43	84	19	5	42	71.26%

 

Defense

	Team	First Downs	Touchdowns	Punts	Turnovers	Failed 4th downs	Field goal attempts
1	Seattle	307	22	85	40	9	29	66.87%
2	San Francisco	320	33	92	32	14	28	68.02%
3	New England	354	38	85	33	17	29	70.50%
4	Denver	352	46	91	26	11	28	71.84%

 

Differential

	Team
1	Denver	9.59%
2	Seattle	5.01%
3	New England	4.17%
4	San Francisco	3.25%

 

Projected Lines

DEN/NE	8.42
SEA/SF	4.76

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